Summer gazpacho. Photo: VDuBourdieu©2008
(Originally published in singlesfood.com)
A friend of mine was in hospital, and the operation went a bit wrong. There was an awfully long silence; then she said she couldn’t eat anything.
A couple of days later, I got an urgent text in response to one of mine; an offer to smuggle in some decent food (she wouldn’t eat the hospital food even when she could eat).
“Can eat now,” she said. Uh huh… The next text said, “Iced soup would be wonderful!” That gave me just two hours to rustle ups something appetising.
Yikes. No chicken stock, no blender, no leeks, and no buttermilk in answer to the first things I thought of, i.e. cool chicken and lemon soup, vichysoisse (leek and potato), or cucumber and buttermilk. What, then?
Tomatoes are a passion of mine, so of course there were some of those and, even better, there was a full carton of organic tomato juice in the fridge. Not to mention a cucumber, and a couple of peppers - one red, one green.
I moistened their skins with a little oil ,and popped the peppers in a hot oven until they blistered. Then I wrapped them in the tinfoil they cooked on until they cooled, and removed the skins, pith and seeds. I chopped the red one finely, and threw that into the tomato juice. Then I added the peeled, finely chopped cucumber.
Looking at the windowsill, basil and chives waved at me. I nicked some basil leaves and tore them into my mixing bowl of soup, and cut in some chives with sharp scissors.
Anything else? Yes, the juice of half an organic lemon, a little sea salt, and a toss of fennel seeds - for digestive purposes. Wow! After tasting it, I simply had to eat a small bowl of it immediately.
The rest went into a couple of glass jars, wrapped in coloured tissue paper like presents. I took a soup spoon, as well, so that she could retreat somewhere unobtrusive - out of the way of eagle-eyed nurses - and sup on soup.
